Burning oil

I've noticed over the last couple weeks that the Civic has started burning oil on cold starts. Little wafts of blue smoke from the exhaust until it gets some heat in it. It seems to be rapidly getting worse. Today I had to pull out on the road and get on it before it had a chance to get any heat in it and all I could see behind me was a blue smoke screen. Ugh. I hate burning oil. 

What year? 

Sometimes it is as simple as a bad PCV valve.  I would start there. 

1989 1.5L with 226750 miles. 

Rings or valve guides/seals. 

A recent post here:
 

CJ
3/12/18 3:13 p.m.
I worked on my BIL's Volvo diesel.  The thing was going through a quart of oil every tank and he wanted to rebuild it.  Got it warm, pulled the glow plugs, and started feeding BG44K into the cylinders with an old pump-type oil  can.  Gave it a couple of shots in each cylinder and worked the crankshaft pulley back and forth.  Let it sit for 5-6 hours and did it again... did this for a couple of days.
Before it went back together, threw an old towel over the glow plug holes and spun it over with the starter to blow out any remaining liquid.  Put the glow plugs back in and started it up.  Be prepared.  It WILL smoke... like it's on fire... and whatever was knocked loose from the pistons ended up in the crankcase.  You will need to change the oil.  Anyway, the car went from using a quart between fill-ups to using less than a quart between oil changes.
Will it work on the 460?  Who knows, but BG44K is cheap and you will only be out some time and an oil change.

Oh, and Honduhs are a 200K Mile car.  Didn't you know?

In reply to Dr. Hess :

Pretty sure it's valve seals. But the compression was a little on the low side when I checked it, not exceptionally so given the mileage but she's probably just about wore out. Don't like the car enough to consider putting any real work into it. I just hate being that guy blowing blue smoke everywhere.

Your description does sound more like seals.  On a Toyota, bad valve seals are bad valve seals.  On a GM product, bad valve seals are bad valve guides which took out the seals.  Honduhs I dunno.  If valve guides are not much of an issue on them, then you might be able to swap the seals out with an air compressor holding the valve closed.  Still not a small job.  I guess it's live with it or do the gas cap trick.

I had a thought last night and tested a theory today. I don't notice any smoke when I park at the house. Our parking lot at work slopes steeply upwards close to the building. I typically back in so the front of the car is down. However yesterday I pulled in. So today I backed in and I had virtually no smoke whatsoever. 

It's gotta be valve seals and parking nose up allows oil to pool up around them and then leaking into the cylinders. At least that's the theory.

That sounds about right.  An easy test for valve seals is this: get up some speed, downshift and let off the throttle.  Let it engine brake at high rpm for a few seconds and then snap the throttle open kinda quickly.  If you get a smoke puff / cloud behind you, it's pulling oil through the valve guides or seals (or at least somewhere exposed to intake vacuum). 

In reply to rslifkin :

You just described how I take a set of 90° left corners when leaving work. I accelerate up through the top of third, heal toe back to second and let it engine brake with a little trail braking to get the rear to rotate down to the apex then stab the throttle up to the top of second then trail brake into the next corner and accelerate out.

And yes it does that. Especially when cold. 

Currently in the process of replacing valve seals in my mx6. Life hack: if you buy the parts a couple weeks before you actually do the work, make sure you remember where you put them so you don't have to buy two sets of valve stem seals.